December 31, 2017 July 29, 2023
KingsIsle’s 2017 – A Look Back
Another year comes to an end and thus we all start thinking back at what we accomplished this past year. KingsIsle has accomplished quite a few feats this past year. Simply by taking a look at the final words in Wizard101’s December 2016’s Producer’s letter,
“We’ve already been talking about what’s coming to the Spiral in 2017 and we’re super excited to get started on it. You may get by with a little help from some new friends. You may be inspired to travel the worlds of the Spiral again with renewed purpose. You will certainly have new foes to battle, new allies to collaborate with, and new powerful items to seek out. We’ve been scouring the forums for feedback, and are already working on the initial stages of our devious plan to create lots of fun content and improve the game next year, so stay tuned.”
Falmea’s prophecy was fulfilled! Clearly, the “new friends” refer to the new lvl 118 school pets, and “travelling the Spiral with renewed purpose” refers to monstrology which has us scouring the entire Spiral for all the different creatures we can collect (that one was exhausting, but enjoyable!). Finally, after boldly going where no wizard has went before we discovered Empyrea, where we found new foes, new allies and plenty of powerful items!
Furthermore, let’s take a look back at some of the highlight events this past year:
January
- The Ghulture’s Hoard Pack made its very first appearance in the Spiral.
- New flying carpet mounts for each and every school were sighted in the Crown Shop.
- Pack-a-Palooza made its way to the Spiral for both Wizard101 and Pirate101.
February
- The annual friendship festival took place in this very brief month, and with it came Valentina HeartSong with the brand new Friendship Oni.
- The brand new Friendship Jaguar made its way to Pirate101!
- Updates were made to the Water Elemental minion and our very own Eric Stormbringer covers the topic.
March
- A long requested mount all the way from Marleybone made its way to the Crown Shop, the Marleybone Car Mount with +50% speed.
- Pat ‘O Gold made her yearly appearance with St Patrick’s day items.
- Edward hosted yet another Easter Bunny run for the community with his cohosts Autumn DreamWalker, Frostcaller and Michael Frost.
- To conclude this month, we get our first teaser of what is to come in the next update – Monstrology.
April
- Eggbert kicked off the Spring Festival by making a reappearance in the Shopping District.
- The 2017 April Fools’ Day mount revealed itself to be the coolest mount ever… quite literally! The Coolest Mount Ever for both Wizard101 and Pirate101.
- Another fruitful update hit the live realm in this highly eventful month. The update brought with it Monstrology, new skeleton key bosses, lvl 118 school pets and Aquila fishing.
- We can now imitate our Ravenwood professors thanks to the Professor’s Hoard pack which made it’s first appearance right after the update.
- Let’s not forget the Fansite Festival where all fansites host various events like we did with the PvP Bash.
May
- Everclicker exits soft launch and is now available worldwide.
- The Avalon Outlaw’s Bundle is officially released in Wizard101, bringing with it the Vulpine Avenger’s Mount!
- The double Monstrology Animus member benefit hit the Spiral, giving monstrologists out there an incentive to hunt down some monsters.
- We launch our Pet Talent Calculator that was developed by our own Termagant based on Project O at Wizard101 Central.
June
- Pet-a-Palooza hits both Wizard101 and Pirate101, bringing with it the new Manticore and White Tiger pets.
- Additionally, the new Roller Blades mounts was later discovered in Wizard101.
July
- Another brand new pack made its way to Wizard101’s side of the Spiral, the Wysteria Lore pack. Three lore spells await you inside!
- The Fantastic Voyage Gauntlet bundle is now available in stores for Wizard101.
- Paige MoonShade hosted her annual dorm decorating contest.
- Introducing Turn-Based Tournaments, Chat Improvements and PvP Daily Rewards in the Summer update.
- More monstrology spells are now available.
August
- Professor Falmea teases the next world update (Empyrea) in the Producer’s Letter.
- The brand new Pouncing Panther mount launches in Pirate101.
- Everclicker has its first update, bringing guilds to the game.
September
- Pirate101 had a long awaited update full of fun new features.
- The long anticipated Team-up Ledger made its home in Skull Island.
- Pirates can now use emojis too!
- Crews can now fight on their own with the all new Auto-Companions feature!
- The Party Barge was introduced with repeatable quests and exclusive loot to earn.
- Wizard101 celebrated its ninth birthday! Us at Final Bastion celebrated this amazing accomplishment with the community by hosting a tournament and lots of other fun events.
October
- Empyrea part 1 was first teased about.
- Grub Guardian was updated so that now you are able to level pets to Ultra and you can also play for double rewards when the double pet xp member benefit is on.
- Pirate101 celebrated its 5th birthday and we hosted a Birthday Bash to celebrate with you!
- Spooky Carnival Bundle launched the Halloween festivities in the Spiral by bringing us the brand new Creepy Clown Car that can hold up to 4 players!
- Additionally, Halloween brought an update to the Gloomthorn Nightmare pack.
- Pirate101 now also has the Gloomthorn Vine and All Souls Pegasus mounts available throughout Halloween.
- Animal Cove soft launches in some select countries. Watch the trailer here.
November
- Empyrea part 1 finally leaves test realm and is available for players in the live realm. Watch a preview here.
- KingsIsle took part in the Extra Life charity gaming marathon and people who raised over 100 dollars were awarded a mystery bundle, the Empyrean Castaway Bundle!
- Harvest Hannah revisits the Spiral just in time for the Harvest Festival!
- Derrick, a Make-A-Wish visitor at KingsIsle, helped create some awesome new items that were added in the game during KI Live!
December
The last month of the year was a blast with the 12 days of Christmas and our 20 bundle days celebrations.
- DuelCircle had their 2017 Christmas Clash.
- We also had our very own Christmas Clash event with some fun PvP.
- A new member benefit was revealed for Wizard101 – the 1st Second Chance Chest Roll free per completed dungeon.
- The Winter Wonder pack was updated for 2017 and now has the Wolf of the Winter mount and the Reindeer Knight spell.
- To conclude the year, Professor Falmea provided us with yet another Producer’s letter with some fun hints at what’s to come.
2017 has been quite the busy year for KingsIsle – and we can only start to wonder what 2018 has in store. We’d like to send a thank you to:
- The Community Newsletter for continuously featuring our articles among other amazing articles from the community.
- KingsIsle – for providing us with many updates, new games, and new memories over the past year.
- To players – for always coming up with new, amazing creations and for the thoughtful, engaging conversations to further better the game.
- Every single reader of our articles for the past year.
THANK YOU! You all mean a great deal and we’d be nothing without you guys.
Bring on 2018!
Don’t forget that you can visit KingsIsle’s website and Youtube to show your support!
